My wife and I are extremely active on Couchsurfing: http://www.couchsurfing.com/profile.html?id=3Q8M8P is my profile. My wife's profile has username MOKSHA and is linked from mine. Apart from having hosted a huge number of people, many of them women travelling alone or as a pair, my wife has travelled in India, China and a lot of Europe using Couchsurfing. It's been the source of some of our best experiences travelling, and I can't recommend it enough. In fact, we've just finished hosting two friends from Mumbai who we met whilst Couchsurfing there, and we're hosting an Australian woman travelling alone right now.
At a technical level, the reference system works very well. Beyond that, the idea of Couchsurfing is all about trusting people. I won't deny that there are dangerous people out there, but I am very happy for my wife to travel alone using Couchsurfing; and when we travel together I prefer to use Couchsurfing to meet people who invite us into their homes and let us see the place we're visiting in a way that you never see as just a tourist.
Couchsurfing has a vouching system whereby you can vouch for another person only if you yourself have been vouched for three times. This allows for a reasonably high degree of trust in people who have been vouched for. Also, the system displays the shortest possible path from you to the person's profile that you are viewing. If you know people in the system, you can follow this path to reassure yourself about your prospective host.
I understand that you might instantly feel concerned about the idea. You have no idea how many people say: "What if they're an axe-murderer!". (It's always an axe-murderer for some reason.) My response is this: one day I, or Emily, might meet an axe murderer, but the chance is incredibly small and until then we're going to have the most amazing experiences and meet the most amazing people. The alternative is to not have those experiences, and I'm more than willing to take that tiny risk for the amazing rewards. I know that Emily is the same.
Seriously. Look into the idea and think about it. You don't have to offer your couch, and no-one will force you to travel and stay with people you don't trust; but the more that you use the system, the more you will get out of it. On top of that, if you're ever in the North of England then you've got my profile link right there.
Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap.
All of them good, hard sci-fi. Reynolds is an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency, and so you get some reasonable science behind the ideas a lot of the time. (Although some of it is extremely hypothetical stuff.)
He's my absolute favourite science fiction author and I can't recommend him enough. I read "A Fire Upon the Deep" for the first time about a week ago and liked it, but Alastair Reynolds completely amazed me.
To be entirely fair, Transgaming didn't force gentoo to pull the packages, they asked them to pull the packages and gave their reasons. The gentoo developers respected that and complied.
You (and I) may disagree with Transgaming's reasons, but saying that they "forced" gentoo to pull the packages is unfairly implying harsh measures on Transgaming's part.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife and I are extremely active on Couchsurfing: http://www.couchsurfing.com/profile.html?id=3Q8M8P is my profile. My wife's profile has username MOKSHA and is linked from mine. Apart from having hosted a huge number of people, many of them women travelling alone or as a pair, my wife has travelled in India, China and a lot of Europe using Couchsurfing. It's been the source of some of our best experiences travelling, and I can't recommend it enough. In fact, we've just finished hosting two friends from Mumbai who we met whilst Couchsurfing there, and we're hosting an Australian woman travelling alone right now.
At a technical level, the reference system works very well. Beyond that, the idea of Couchsurfing is all about trusting people. I won't deny that there are dangerous people out there, but I am very happy for my wife to travel alone using Couchsurfing; and when we travel together I prefer to use Couchsurfing to meet people who invite us into their homes and let us see the place we're visiting in a way that you never see as just a tourist.
Couchsurfing has a vouching system whereby you can vouch for another person only if you yourself have been vouched for three times. This allows for a reasonably high degree of trust in people who have been vouched for. Also, the system displays the shortest possible path from you to the person's profile that you are viewing. If you know people in the system, you can follow this path to reassure yourself about your prospective host.
I understand that you might instantly feel concerned about the idea. You have no idea how many people say: "What if they're an axe-murderer!". (It's always an axe-murderer for some reason.) My response is this: one day I, or Emily, might meet an axe murderer, but the chance is incredibly small and until then we're going to have the most amazing experiences and meet the most amazing people. The alternative is to not have those experiences, and I'm more than willing to take that tiny risk for the amazing rewards. I know that Emily is the same.
Seriously. Look into the idea and think about it. You don't have to offer your couch, and no-one will force you to travel and stay with people you don't trust; but the more that you use the system, the more you will get out of it. On top of that, if you're ever in the North of England then you've got my profile link right there.
Alastair Reynolds.
Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap.
All of them good, hard sci-fi. Reynolds is an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency, and so you get some reasonable science behind the ideas a lot of the time. (Although some of it is extremely hypothetical stuff.)
He's my absolute favourite science fiction author and I can't recommend him enough. I read "A Fire Upon the Deep" for the first time about a week ago and liked it, but Alastair Reynolds completely amazed me.
Read them. Trust me.
To be entirely fair, Transgaming didn't force gentoo to pull the packages, they asked them to pull the packages and gave their reasons. The gentoo developers respected that and complied.
You (and I) may disagree with Transgaming's reasons, but saying that they "forced" gentoo to pull the packages is unfairly implying harsh measures on Transgaming's part.
Wait a minute... your WIFE got him to sign a computer game rather than the book? What on earth are you sighing for?
Nah... no way will any of these systems still be in use in 30 years time...